Fitbit Versa Your $200 Fitness Smartwatch

Oh, and it’s slim, too. At 11.2mm thick, the Versa is the thinnest smartwatch Fitbit has ever managed to make, and the company claims it’s the lightest all-metal smartwatch you’ll find in the US. It didn’t feel dramatically lighter than the Series 3 Apple Watch I brought along for comparison, but we’ll sort that out once it’s time for a full review.

A 1.34-inch square LCD sits in the middle of the Versa’s body, and with brightness topping out at 1,000 nits, it was remarkably easy to read even under harsh sunlight. You’ll find 4GB of storage inside, only 2.5GB of which is available for music storage (you know so that you can leave your phone at home during runs). To be clear, though, the Versa can’t do everything the Ionic can. There’s no built-in GPS here, for one, which helps explain why the Versa’s tiny 145mAh battery is rated for over four days of use on a single charge. And Fitbit Pay, the contactless payment service supported by around 40 banks around the world, is missing from the standard Versa. To use it, you’ll either have to shell out $30 extra for one of Fitbit’s special edition Versas, or buy a regular Versa from overseas where the feature is enabled by default. (Go figure.)